Page 91 of The Wedding Game

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

I’m at my laptop the next morning, my leg twitching up and down, as I’m unable to concentrate. I rang Josh three times last night after I discovered he was nowhere to be found. I left a voicemail each time, which is silly, because if he’d listened to any of them, he’d have found they all said the same thing. And I followed each one up with a text.

I didn’t know if I should be worried or not. It was too late to ring his parents, too late to ring Tamara or any of his work crew. I didn’t want to look deranged. But equally, Josh hadn’t said he’d be away. Or had he? He hadn’t spoken to me all day when I was travelling back down from Scarlet’s. But then I hadn’t messaged him, either. We’re past that phase of checking in on each other every hour on the hour. Not that we were ever there in the first place. That’s a bit extra, even for new couples, I think.

Visions of Josh mangled and dead in some kind of farm-machinery accident suddenly fill my mind and I pull my wellies on in the boot room, heading out now it’s daylight in search of Josh. He’ll have been up for hours ordinarily, and hard at work, but he’s not on the farm, either, and his workmates look equally baffled by his absence.

‘He was here yesterday evening when we finished,’ Tony says. ‘Are you sure he’s not at home?’

I shake my head, now even more confused, and go back to the farmhouse where, incredibly, I find Josh sitting at the other end of the kitchen table, facing the door, head in his hands. He’s nursing a cup of tea and wearing crumpled clothes. He looks up at me as I enter.

‘You’re here,’ I cry and move towards him.

He smiles thinly and then uses his knuckles to rub his forehead.

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, stopping midway to him.

I watch his Adam’s apple move in his throat as he slowly swallows.

‘I don’t know how to say this, so I’m going to just say it, and it’s not going to be articulate or … anything like that,’ he tells me.

‘OK?’ I say. I still haven’t managed to throw my arms around him and tell him I missed him. Josh’s body language is off. He’s stiff and blocking me emotionally, without blocking me physically.

‘Last night I …’ He shakes his head, clearly unsure how to phrase whatever it is he wants to say. ‘I …’

‘Say it,’ I urge, but I realise I’ve snapped it, in my haste to hear whatever it is. I want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it.

‘Last night Tamara and I …’

I remain in a blissful moment of ignorance before everything goes wrong. As I work out what has happened, I crumble in devastation. ‘Oh God,’ I cry, working it out.

‘You have to hear me out,’ Josh says quickly. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen.’

‘Oh God,’ I cry again. I pull out a chair and slump into it. ‘I’m such an idiot.’

‘You’re not. I am. I’m the idiot,’ he says. He doesn’t stand up, doesn’t try to move towards me. He doesn’t do anything, but looks less stiff now, as if he’s free now that he’s said it – the heavy weight of guilt marginally less, now his words are out. ‘I didn’t know it was going to happen. It surprised me. All of it surprised me. And even as it started, I thought: I’ll regret this. In the morning I’ll wake up and I’ll regret this.’

‘And do you?’ I ask helplessly, because what does it matter, either way.

He can’t look at me. ‘I regret hurting you,’ he replies.

My voice comes out laced with tears. ‘But you don’t regret doing it.’

‘I … I didn’t know I felt like that – about her.’

I want to be sick. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been cheated on. I’ve been cheated on again. Lightning has struck twice. This can’t be happening. I need air. I stand up and go outside into the back garden and gulp down huge lungfuls of fresh country air.

Josh follows me and stands at a distance. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘Tamara and I have been friends since for ever. It was all just … so confusing, so spur-of-the-moment. We were having dinner and then we were watching a film and then we were kissing, and I don’t even know how it started, but then we were—’

‘No,’ I say, ‘I can’t hear this. I don’t want to know howromantic it all was. I want to clarify that we’re talking about the same thing, though. You fucked Tamara while I was in Edinburgh?’

Josh nods and at least has the good grace to look ashamed. ‘I didn’t ruin what you and I have for something inconsequential.’

‘Oh, that makes it all right then,’ I say. I can’t look at him. I look into the distance at the tall purple alliums, waving back and forth drowsily. Summer blooms around me. But inside my head it’s a storm.

‘Please let me explain,’ he pleads before taking a breath. ‘I love her.’

‘Oh God,’ I cry. ‘Stop talking.’

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